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Hello and welcome to the Sound on Sound podcast about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Caro C, and in this episode I'm talking with Selena Kay and Cerys Hogg, who together are an experimental electronic duo called KOGG with backgrounds in classical contemporary composition and jazz improvisation.
KOGG met on a music tech course and have developed a sound rooted in experimentation. We're unpacking their debut album, mechanist, which is out on the label, non-classical.
Mechanist is a quirky collection of track, an exploration where human breath meets mechanical process. It's a musical world built from electronic music tools and techniques applied to things like spanners, toy whistles, brass voice, and ping pong balls. Here's a taste of KOGGS music to get you in the zone.
This is an extract of a track called reel from the aforementioned album Mechanist.
I'm talking with KOGG and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves as I welcome you to the Sound On Sound podcast. So I'm Selena Kay. I'm Cerys Hogg. And together we are KOGG KOGG. Wonderful, thank you. Yeah. I usually like to start with a bit of context in a way, about your journey that's led you to this point of making this album Mechanist that's gonna be out on non-classical and yeah.
Can you tell us a bit about how you got to this point really? Yeah, so we actually met on a music tech course several years ago and we became friends and started hanging out talking about music. We've both got really different backgrounds. My background is like in classical music and carers is in jazz.
But we just sort of chatted about music. We were listening to music, talked about things that we were interested in and that we wanted to explore, and it's just become a bit of a explorative journey since then. And here we are releasing an album. So, yeah, I mean, it's just been an interesting meeting really because we both, you know, come from different approaches, but, you know, from talking through stuff, we talk about harmony, rhythm, you know, we both kind of know a fair bit about music, but you know, it's that sort of intersection.
And also, you know, trying to ignore a lot of our knowledge really, you know, so we really like to mess things around and ignore the bar lines and ignore all that stuff, like, you know, key signatures and stuff. And, but then it comes out in this sort of surprising way and it surprises us. This is the thing.
So every little tune we do, you know, it's an exploration. It's, you know, it's about curiosity and just seeing where things lead. Putting two sounds together and seeing what that makes us do and how we respond to that. Wonderful. So there's a little bit of unlearning there, and also it sounds like music tech has kind of been the bridge to bring together your different worlds as well, you know?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, I remember when I first encountered, I went on a CUBASE course about 20 years ago, and I, and when I first, you know, encountered MIDI, you know, and all the sounds you could do and it got me that it play a certain sound. It makes certain kind of music come out, you know, it inspires the notes you play or the rhythms you play.
And that was just, you know, mind bending really. It really opened things out for me. Although actually we were just talking earlier that we did start doing things. I was an art student years and years ago, and I remember it was, I only remembered this morning about doing recording with squeaky felt tips on some sampler that could do eight seconds and reel to reel, you know, so we both were doing a bit of that back in the day.
But yeah, I think we've both sort of always been interested in like experimental approaches. When I was at college I studied music tech with reel to reel tape and, you know, splicing and making tape loops and was always just interested in anything that involved kind of experimental approaches.
So I think when Cerys and I met, you know, and with our different backgrounds, we sort of brought all of our experience and interests together, not really knowing where it would lead, but somehow, you know, we started to create some, what we thought was some interesting stuff. Yeah. Just it caught our ears, didn't it, and propelled us forward.
And then we find, oh, we've got a track, we've got eight tracks, we've got 11 tracks. So yeah. And then performance as well, you know, which is whole other sort of, you know, development really that's come out of this as well. So at which point did you realise, oh, I think we're a band, I think we've got something that's got its own identity here, it's own personality.
Well, so I think actually, you know, we spent a bit of time when we were just like hanging out as mates, just like messing around with microphones and computers and sounds and stuff and we just sort of had loads of bits of material, but nothing fully formed. And then one day Cerys said to me, oh, I've got us a gig.
And I was like, what? We haven't finished anything, you know and she said, no, we're doing it and so we did that and it was really terrifying because we didn't, you know, we hadn't really decided, you know, on the sort of form of things and Exactly, it was very, very much improvised.
But from that it kind of catalysed us into going, oh, okay, that bit works, you know, that we could do this with that and then yeah, it all kind of went from there. So the sort of performance and the studio explorations, the two were sort of happening into weaving or were they more in parallel or, well, I mean, I think after that initial performance, it just kind of gave us ideas and then we really went back into the studio and our process is very much one of it's, I mean, it's really driven by just like curiosity and experimentation and invention.
So we just started playing with stuff. We could sort of see a form that was gonna, that could emerge for a particular track. And then that led to another track and we started putting stuff
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together in the studio. And then we got another opportunity for a performance like a year or two later and then, yeah, it's all just sort of been a kind of step by step process of gradually putting together this album.
And how has it ended up on the wonderful non-classical label? Well, because after we'd done, we, so we had a residency at Snape Maltings at the Britten Pears Arts in Borough Festival of Festival of New, wasn't it? Yeah. And we had to perform there and yeah, it's a wondrous, wonderful place.
And yeah, it was amazing because we had a week and we had our own kind of concert hall to rehearse in so we could just leave all our stuff out and the way it should be. Yeah. Well, yeah. Quite, why doesn't everyone have their own concert hall? Yeah and after that we entered the non-classical battle of the bands.
So that was our kind of initial relationship with them and we were runners up. So we got into the final and we came in as runners up and yeah. So, and they've been incredibly supportive and helpful to us. So they're fantastic to be grateful. Classical grateful. Yeah. Because they're a, a really great label that would do, you know, sort of contemporary music, contemporary cla you know, from the classical tradition, but also lots of experimental and electronic music.
So even though our music's a bit weird, we, you know, we fit with that. But yeah it's really fantastic. It's really opened lots of opportunities for us. Yeah. And I guess we're kind of a blend of, you know, improvisation and a bit kind of groove driven music, but also kind of quite structured approach as well to composition.
And sort of bringing those two things together, you know, in the non-classical vibe is like they do stuff in concert halls, but also at club nights and, you know, they're quite kind of eclectic in the gigs that they put on. And finding new audiences. Yeah, yeah. Taking the music out there. Yeah. I think one of their kind of big drivers is to bring new music to new audiences.
Yeah. Listening to Mechanist, I can also hear, I could feel there's a confidence there. It was like, not every track needs to have all these musical elements. We are gonna decide what's in there. So it definitely, for me, it stands on all that knowledge or that musical training. But I'm also feeling, is there a bit of a rebelliousness going on there in terms of what experimental music should be by knowledgeable people, knowledgeable women of, of craft.
There's something you're doing with your craft there, it has been described as lighthearted as sort of, you know, not taking yourself too seriously, but how do you see that aspect of it? I mean, I think we do take ourselves seriously for sure, but we do like to sort of have a playful aspect to the music.
So yeah, there are playful elements, but actually, you know, it's really kind of seriously considered. And, um, you know, we think very carefully about the structure of things and the balance of things, um, and, and how everything fits together. So it's not like we're just kind of larking around. We never have a set idea of what we wanna do.
It really is sort of, you know, you do something, you react to it, or we have all these different starting points, which might be, you know, a fragment sound we've worked with, um, things like bartox, wax cylinder recordings, um, ping pong balls, obviously, obviously. Yeah. Obviously, of course, ping pong balls. You know, we, we make instruments basically.
We don't use anything out of the box or very, very rarely, you know, and it's not really synthesis. We have, we use a little bit of synthesis, but not much. It's, so it's, it's really sounds we've, we've sampled and then manipulated and that could be anything. 'cause that just opens up, you know, an infinite number of possibilities, which is really excites us and, you know, what have we used What sort of stuff?
Spanners. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Different sizes to get different tumba and pitches. Yeah. And then feed it, feeding them through various gizmos, you know. Yeah. So in terms of samples, um, you've told me wonderfully, you've prepared some little under the hood listener experiences for us. So, um, yeah, go for it. Let's get under the hood of a couple of samples and how you work or play with them.
So, um, we recorded like ping pong ball bouncing on a, a little, um, tambore. Tambourine. Yeah. Brazilian little drum, not tamborine. Tambore in. Yeah. So no tambos on it. Anyway, so, um, and then we've sort of integrated that into an instrument that sounds like this.
And then kind of combined it with a trombone pedal note to make a kind of bass sound with that kind of ringing at the top of it.
And in the context of the track, it sounds like this.
Another instrument that we've recorded is, um, spanners, actual spanners, and then kind of put them in a sampler and made them into this sound.
You can hear that there's like quite a lot of delay and ambience on those in the context of the track. They sound like this.
Have the little, a bit of the, uh, from Voyager, just a little bit of this is the little instrument, which is little whistles from Christmas crackers with silicon straws and camera lens blowers, kind of little organ called voyager. So that sounds like this.
And then you can hear that, that that's also got a lot of vocal percussion on it. Um, yeah, sort of vocal drum kit. And at the end they're sort of used in a much more sort of lush, uh, context.
So how have you ified that? So just by adding some nice reverb to it, and actually that is also being, um, triggered through a kind of drum machine. So it is kind of made into these little rhythms on different tracks which have like cross rhythms. So you sort of get this polyphony. Yeah. I love using drum machines for melodic stuff.
Mm. Nice. As a found sound aficionado myself. Do you discipline yourselves as to how long you, you're allowed to play and go down the rabbit hole and explore? Or is it again, something that
you just intuitively know when it's the right, you've got the right thing kind of thing? Like tambra, the right texture, the right sound.
I think we do get a fair few recordings of it, you know what I mean? And then probably too many and then it makes like, you know, takes a while to process them all and sort 'em all out. But you know, we obviously we, we, we like to get the best sounds we can, but this rain that, do you wanna have a listen to this lovely bit of rain percussion?
I'm just noticing, which we've made into a snare sort of high hat snare thing really.
And then you can hear it with everything else. That's basically lots of trombones.
Lovely. Thanks for that. Tell us about your gizmos. What kind of gizmos are we talking? The gizmos, there's one on the track voyager, which we call it the Voyager instrument, but I mean, really it's, it's some little whistles from Christmas crackers that Selena gave me one year, and I put them with some silicon straws and some camera lens blowers.
So it's kind of this little funny little organ thing. You know, you play it with your fists and it makes these kind of cute sounds, but it also makes, you know, when we start to manipulate it, these weird sort of sonar sounds and, you know, we, we transpose it and things like that. So, you know, we really try and get as much out of every little sound as possible.
You know, it's, um, there's another one like, yeah, with spanners, which now for performance, I've made it into this sort of ano kind of playable spanner. It's kind of like a keyed spanner thing, you know, like a spanner piano, spanner phone, spanner phone. I think the proper word is a keyed spanner spiel, because you can get a keyed Glock spiel.
Yes, of course. I'm a, I'm a drummer, percussionist, and I just love this thing about action, you know, and you get, you know, how you actually hits a bit of, bit of, you know, drum skin or a string or tubes of brass and stuff, you know, all that stuff. That mechanics of how sort of music is made, you know? Yeah.
Materials and how you interact with them. That's something that really excites us, and I think that's probably partly why we called the album Mechanist.
Yeah, I wanna go back to the gizmos. I want to go back to getting under the hood of when you've got all these sounds that you've, that have peaked your curiosity, you've recorded them. Are you recording one shots or do you tend to record just audio, sort of you playing that over, you know, for a track if you like, or in loops.
And then what kind of processing do you like to go into? So it is a real mixture of those things. Um, sometimes we've just like recorded a single sound and stick it in a sampler. Um, use sampler a lot. Software samplers, not hardware, samplers, I mean, we're mostly using software to be honest, and hardware to trigger things.
Sometimes recording just a single sound to kind of create an instrument. Sometimes recording, you know, playing something or re-sampling something.
Um, and then sticking that in a sampler and just kind of slicing it up or using a bit of it. And yeah, so sometimes various bits of audio go through a series of processes of being resampled in one way or another.
We create software instruments, don't we? Well, I mean, I guess the, like the sound design is a really important aspect of it. So either creating, uh, a new sampled sound, often like putting different samples into Yeah. Drum pads to, to trigger those. And you know, creating a kind of a new percussive instrument.
We also use a lot of vocal percussion and other kind of vocals that we've recorded. Like one time we were just going a bit crazy with two microphones. We were both singing glissandos in opposite directions and recording that. And then we just sort of chop that up and put it through a drum machine and some really mad stuff came out.
Yeah, I mean, and also often not playing these things on a keyboard, you know, when you dunno where the notes are, you know, or playing it on the ableson push or drum pads or something, you know, so it really messes things up and create, you know, we like that sort of generative process, so sort of randomising things a little bit and then we'll turn the drum pads upside down and, you know, play it standing on their heads and stuff like that.
Sure. We don't, but, so as a percussionist, what trigger pads, what, what made controllers do you prefer? Nothing particularly fancy. We just got some, uh, what are they? AKA MPDs. Just very basic stuff really. Selena uses a push in performance. Um, I use, uh, in performance I use a Roland SPD, uh, what do you call it?
Yeah. You know, a big drum pad thing and other pads. We've used to record some TC Helicon voice, live touch, um, where you can control your voice. It's a bit like Jacob Collier uses, but sort of poor man version. Um, you know, where you can play a chord on a MIDI keyboard and you're singing into it and that comes out like a choir basically, which is nice.
Really cool. Um, and we have used that in performance as well. So, um, we're sort of expanding things a little bit more in this performance because often when we perform and it's just us, we, we try and fit things in, you know, so we can travel on a train and avoid using a car. Ideally, it's always about, oh, can I manage to take that particular thing?
'cause it all gets very heavy. And, but, so we're expanding things on this performance 'cause we're also working with a four piece brass section. Mm. Nice. But, you know, we're also using some real instruments. I'm, you know, using a real symbol and snare as well as these midi instruments and, and also some objects like tinfoil and a slinky and bits of ano to smash.
And, and also, you know, these other instruments that we've made like the spanners, so we're miking up that and also putting it through a pedal. So it's just got this zoom, multi stomp pedal. So, you know, putting delays on some of these sort of percussion instruments or not, you know, objects, but using them as percussion instruments.
At work Live then, um, it sounds like you are busy on percussion and, um, and other instruments. So sort of who's doing the live processing or is that something you've set up before? So, um, I'm really controlling all of the electronic stuff, um, and through an Ableton push push two, um, I used to use an A PC 40, but upgraded to the push, um, to be able to have like full control over the software.
Um, yeah, so there's some kind of instruments set up on that. Um, but also, you know, triggering some stuff from our tracks. So a combination of things. And to what extent are you wanting to keep room for improvisation in performance? Or is it very much about you want to tour this album if you like? Well, it's a mixture.
Uh, yeah, we kind of combine a bit of improv with some, some stuff that's, you know, we've had to kind of write out. We've sort of done a kind of compositional process backwards where we create the music, you know, electronically, but then in order to play it live because it's rhythmically quite tight, which is quite a challenge to, to play live.
Mm. So we've had to kind of write scores that we can follow so we know what's happening where, and there's always this thing because we compiles and music on the computer and then we, you know, we're cutting it all up and think, oh, just lose that little tiny microsecond there. But then we realise that we gotta learn how to play this.
So yeah, we write scores and then find out that the lack of four four, the lack of four on the floor, I mean it's, this is not repetitive music. It's constantly changing. We make our lives so difficult basically. Mm-hmm. But you know, we end up finding, oh, there's a little bar of, you know, three semiquavers and then it's five four and then it's seven eight.
And, you know, well I, I think because part of the process of um, like creating the music apart from like using sample and playing them, we use quite a lot of the, um, devices, Ableton like uh, the follow-ons in the session view and like create things like little irregular loops on different tracks. So you get these really kind of complex rhythms.
Um, and also like the creative sequences, like the probability pack. So you end up with some material that to us sounds really interesting and we end up using it, but then we realise when we've gotta play it live, it's actually quite challenging. Hmm. Do you know what? I really like that because for me, listening to it with fresh ears, I found it's spacious, quite light and not dense or complex.
And I suppose in that sense, that's possibly part of the magic of it, is that yes, it's complex and really tight and controlled from your end, but it sounds almost quite light. Well, yeah, hopefully, you know, I mean, even though we spend, well months, more than months, you know, honing these things, we're still trying to get that spontaneity in there.
You know, we still want it to sound fresh 'cause we, you
know, you don't wanna overwork these things, you know, but there, yeah, there is a lot of complexity actually going on below the surface. Might just sound like a little groove, but yeah, there's, um, there's, there's stuff happening. Awesome. And in terms of your, let's say, your training of your worlds of jazz and classical, that's huge in terms of harmonic, let alone anything, any other frameworks.
Have you, did you decide on a common language or is it more intuitive? No, we, we, I think it's more intuitive. Yeah. Very much so. I mean, we never know where we're gonna take something, you know, we really don't, we never have a plan. But I think in the process of making it, although we're not thinking, oh, let's use this particular scale or, you know, these particular chords, you know, all of our kind of knowledge about that stuff is finding its way in.
Mm, nice. So compared to projects you've had before or music or work you've had before, how does this compare? Oh, it's completely different. Yeah. Um, I mean, for me, um, as a someone who's sort of more used to like writing stuff on paper, you know, or rather in sebelius on a computer and then getting people to play it, um, you know, it's, it's just a really different way of working because it's much more immediate, much more playful, um, you know, getting results, playing with the results rather than kind of having to decide everything in advance or, you know, and then seeing what happens when you get together with a bunch of people, which is also great fun and, you know, really fantastic to have acoustic instruments.
But yeah, it's just really different. Yeah. And for me, I mean I've, I've done, you know, quite a lot of performance as a sort of jazz vocalist and also a drummer and also on piano, but you know, that's normally within piano based drums, maybe a saxophone, you know, maybe a bit of brass section. But you know, we create this kind of whole, maybe an orchestra or a sound world, you know, with really does have infinite possibilities, you know?
'cause you can take any sound, you know, and do all sorts of things with it. And that's so exciting. So it's in the way, it feels a bit like we've created this giant instrument, you know, that we then play and then we try and play it in interesting ways that deliberately make us play, you know, new stuff. So it, you know, it's, it is just so freeing to lose, you know, the confines of things like accord sequence, you know, 16 bars.
And how would you say the kind of dialogue between new works, would you say it's conversation or is it a different, do you mean in the process of creating the music? Yeah, and in process of composing. So we kind of think of it as more creating, 'cause composing was, has that connotation of you're writing something for other people to play.
And this is very much about us as, as sort of creative performers. Yeah. But I mean, it is an interesting thing to create with someone else, you know, to collaborate. Um, we don't always agree. I don't wanna sound negative, we don't always agree. There's no, we really have to fight stuff out sometimes. Yeah, sometimes we really do.
I mean there's, I dunno, let's not go into those. Let's go there.
That's healthy. Conflict conflicts are healthy. See, Leonard won't like me saying this. Sometimes we don't. There's a couple of times we cannot agree on what beat one is. We just perceive it in different ways. But that's fine, you know, because Love it. It's just music. Yeah, it's great. Makes it a bit difficult when we're trying to rehearse it and things like that.
Where's your WI know it's different places, you know, that's kind of breaking the rules. We always come up with something better and sometimes we play a sort of kind of consequences game, so we literally take it in turns. Sometimes we have to say no. I like that version. You know, rewind, you know, we've got all these different recordings of bits and we cut it all up and, but we always come up with something better than I think we would've done individually.
Yeah, yeah. 'cause I think quite often, especially with women making electronic music, there's a little bit of a, um, norm let's say of the, what we call the alpha female. Mm-hmm. And it's a lot about having that agency, especially with electronic music. So it does mean you actually get to choose, you know, you, you are literally the, as you say, from Sound Source through to how to, how you record it through to what you do with it afterwards, but then to, to have that more intense relationship of just the two of you wanting to create music, I imagine.
Yeah. It makes for a wonderful mix. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it makes it more unpredictable as well, you know, so there's always a dialogue going on, you know, there's always something new coming out, which we might not find and challenging you ideas, which is healthy as well, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. So, yeah. Brilliant. So what's next for KOGG now? You have released this first album. Yeah, I guess we want to get out there and play it. We were really fortunate to get funding from PRSF, so from the Performing Rights Society Foundation, we got their Women Make Music awards. So because we got that, it's really opened things up in that we can perform this, the whole album, you know, for the first time with, with Brass, you know, and it's allowed us to sort of work some other projects that were, you know, still inside the computer into live performance, you know, so, and that, that's a, that's a big deal because we also create video for everything.
Yeah. So we use video sync software, which is an amazing package of plug-ins that integrates with Ableton, I think that they're made with jitter. Yeah. And you can use MIDI to trigger visuals as well. And we, you know, live webcam and stuff like that, so people get a view of what's going on and that's manipulated.
So video manipulation going on at the same time. Yeah. I wonder, how do you describe your music to people who might not even be in a musical world? That's always a difficult one. Um, we, I mean, we could say, I think partly it's the sound, you know, so we could say things like, you know, we, it's a musical world built from spanners, toy whistles, brass, elastic bands, ping pong balls and our voices.
That's one thing. You know, I think I'd also, we'd also say that, you know, our aim has been to craft a distinctive sound world where there are elements of improvisation, but also sort of real tight structure. Um, and we've sort of tried to achieve a balance of composition meets spontaneity. Amazing. Great.
Well, I think that's wonderful. Thank you for your time today and I wish you all the best with your continued adventures in KOGG. Oh, thanks. Thanks very much for having us. Thank you for listening. And be sure to check out the show notes for further information, as well as links and details of other episodes in the electronic music series.
And just before you go, let me point you to sound on sound.com/podcast so you can check out what's on our other channels. This has been a accuracy production for sound on sound.